THE leader of Thurrock Council has slammed members of the council's environmental services workforce for voting to take strike action in a battle over terms and conditions.

He says they are being manipulated by their union who he urges should 'back down form irresponsible pandemic strike action'.

Cllr Rob Gledhill criticises the union says its action is simply to try to and influence the outcome of a democratic election.

Thurrock will go to the polls to elect new borough councillors on Thursday, May 6, the day before a planned three week strike starting on Tuesday, 13 April ends.

Cllr Gledhill says: "Calling a three week strike during a global pandemic has to be one of the most irresponsible acts seen from a UK trade union in many years.

"The timing of the action, three weeks before the local elections, also shows this strike for what it is. A militant hard left union, manipulating its members, and attempting to influence the outcome of a democratic election."

However, the roots of the dispute between workers in the environment department go back more than 12 months. Last April Thurrock Nub News reported on the discontent among members of the environmental services and there was talk of a strike then.

Even though those threats petered out when the council conceded some ground, workers reported increasing unhappiness with the way they were being asked to work in the face of the Covid pandemic.

There was particular criticism of the council's senior management, with allegations of bullying and riding roughshod over accepted practices of negotiation. Those fears had been voiced in 2018 when refuse collection workers came close to strike action over installation of what the union claimed were 'spy cameras' on bin wagons.

Dates were set for a series of strikes in late April and May that year but again, the council conceded ground at the eleventh hour and an agreement was reached.

Following those skirmishes and in the wake of increasing financial pressure on its resources the council set up a task and finish group to look at the way environmental services, particularly bin collections were managed. That in itself led to friction when some of the ideas the group put forward were immediately discarded by officers and senior councillors who put together the draft for changes which are now at the heart of the current dispute.

Even Conservative members of the group lashed out with criticism of the way their work was discarded.

And so, after several months of stalemate and with both sides saying the other was refusing to meet at the negotiating table, a third call for strike action in three years came about.

In the wake of that tainted history of industrial relations, Cllr Gledhill says he is clear where the fault lies.

He told Thurrock Nub News today (Friday, 2 April): "I have enormous respect for individual workers and the department as a whole, however they have very poorly advised by their trade union, Unite.

"If Unite insist on taking this action, nothing will be achieved other than residents suffering and hard-working staff losing three weeks' pay. This is entirely unnecessary.

"I suggest that union representatives get back to the negotiating table immediately. I can assure residents that Thurrock Council have never left the negotiating table.

"Sit down. Talk. Agree concessions on both sides. Make a deal. Job done. Spare the residents of Thurrock three weeks of pain. They've already been through enough this year and will not thank you for these actions.

"However, Unite needs to understand that Thurrock Council will not be held to ransom. Unite needs to accept that no council can justify, paying triple time overtime, especially for those on standby. We have to provide value for money to the taxpayer. This is awful value for money."

While Cllr Gledhill says the workers in Thurrock are being pressured and manipulated by union activists to force a strike, it is clear from the figures released by Civica Election Service that independently monitored the ballot that there is an overwhelming majority among the workforce itself for action.

In the ballot of Unite members 132 people were eligible to vote and 97 took part in the ballot, a turnout of 73.9 per cent. Of those who voted 88 (90.7%) sanctioned strike action and nine (9.3%) voted against. Exactly three quarters of the environment services teams workforce have voted to walk out.

Those figures prompted the union to say that it is the council that the manipulating force in the dispute, an opinion backed up by local union rep Willie Howard who says he and his colleagues have been pushed over the edge by a council trying to deflect the spotlight from its own failings.

In a personal statement, he writes: "At one stage, Thurrock had the highest infection rates for Covid-19 in the UK, and numerous refuse and care workers contracted the virus – some becoming seriously ill.

"Despite the rhetoric locally and nationally about our key workers being supported, the council brass who spent the past year working safely from home were conspiring to rob them at the earliest opportunity.

"As workers began to hear about this plan, needless to say they were incensed. One remarked to me that it was 'the height of betrayal,' and many felt that their hard work over the past year was flung back in their faces by council mandarins who hadn't even bothered to inform them in person.

"Instead, Thurrock Council is running a campaign of disinformation. Union officials were prohibited from visiting the depot (not because of Covid regulations but because of 'incendiary language' being used at meetings), workers were given leaflets accusing the union of lying and maintaining no pay cuts were planned, and most farcical of all, Unite was accused of 'doctoring' the original cuts proposal that was provided by the council themselves.

"But given these conditions, the response of the refuse workers at Thurrock has been inspirational. Union density is at 95 percent and after-work Zoom meetings have had huge participation. The branch has grown and thrived in the face of management threats and bullying.

"Workers returned a thumping strike ballot on a 75 percent turnout – quite an achievement these days, in the context of a pandemic preventing mass meetings and punitive anti-trade union laws.

"The reason for this vote was the council's plan to bring in a series of drastic contractual changes that would leave these workers between £1,000 and £4,000 per year worse off. Existing terms and conditions around bank holiday pay, overtime, and vehicle checks allowance are to be scrapped in a process the council calls 'modernisation', a corporate phrase deployed to mask the reality of a race to the bottom.

"Alongside refuse workers, domestic care workers (represented by the GMB union) are also seeing similarcuts to their remuneration.

"To add insult to injury, while the lower-paid key workers are suffering life-changing attacks on their livelihood, the senior council staff devising and implementing these cuts are seeing no real change to their working conditions or pay.

"Due to the overwhelming public support for these workers and the acknowledgement of the difficult job they do, the council won't honestly state in public that they are leaving them thousands of pounds worse off.

"It is currently mired in its own scandal over a series of highly-controversial speculation deals and it's clear that the last thing the council want is the suggestion that they are passing these costs onto those who deliver vital services in the borough."

Mr Howard's comments about the workers being praised for their efforts, reflects comments made only a few weeks ago by environment portfolio holder Aaron Watkins who said: "The work the environment team have done has been fantastic, and I thank every one of them for their continued hard work.

"The past year has been met with multiple challenges as a result of Covid-19, and while we collectively fight this, we still have some of these challenges. But the service will continue to strive forward and deliver an excellent service for our residents."

The council's full terms and conditions review can be found via this link.